Google Thermal View?

As most of you know, there is more to an energy audit or energy rating (such as a HERS rating) than just the thermal imaging - but this start up company is using it to get a nationwide database going.........

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A local energy efficiency group in Michigan tried a similar idea last year in a small town and got a lot of backlash from homeowners. This is an idea that looks good to energy wonks but flops in the real world.

I get really tired of seeing this "save energy" stuff with no measurement behind it. Save HOW MUCH? LOTS? Put LOTS on a deposit slip and the teller will look at you funny.

THIS IS NOT TELLING ME ANYTHING MEASURABLE! Not energy use, not energy opportunity, nothing. Even my crappy calculator is better than this. http://bit.ly/Homescale

If you want to start your relationship based upon lies, expect crappy relationships. We need to learn how to tell the TRUTH or this industry will never gain the credibility it needs to take off. We need tools that HONESTLY define opportunity, not tools that falsely represent problems using scare tactics.

The intent of evaluating a building for an energy rating is to include many data points, one of them being thermography. Thermography is a measurement tool with most thermal imagers calibrated to provide an accurate thermal measurement (+-2C or 2%). The problem is not the measurement it provides, but that buildings are constantly in transition with temperature variation. The heat capacity differences of building materials influence heat flow or diffusivity. Because of this “lag”, thermal patterns are influenced and observations more difficult to interpret.

Essess has looked at thousands of buildings and has found thermal patterns that contribute to the “rating” or evaluation of a building. In combination with many other measures a pretty good comparison (or rating) can be made.

Thermography by itself is a very difficult tool to provide a complete building energy evaluation. It is the additional data points and software analysis of this data that allow essess to provide a reasonable rating. Besides energy rating, thermography is a great tool for evaluating buildings in additional areas, providing useful data for the clients essess provide services to.